Attention NASW members: We need your help grooming the next generation of science writers
The NASW Education Committee is again sponsoring its annual mentoring program at the AAAS meeting in Vancouver, Feb. 16-20, and we need volunteers to act as mentors. The program matches a veteran writer with a student in a graduate science writing program or an undergraduate student who has displayed a serious interest in science journalism.
If you would like to help, please fill out the application below, noting your availability at the AAAS meeting and your background, and we'll assign a student to you before the meeting starts. Then, all mentors and mentees who can make it will gather for an orientation session at the AAAS meeting on Friday, Feb. 17 at 4 p.m. If you can't make that gathering, simply contact your mentee in advance and arrange when to meet.
Mentors have traditionally had their mentees shadow them for day or half-day, showing them how they select talks and press conferences for coverage. But your involvement is totally up to you; if you prefer, you can have lunch or breakfast with your mentee and be available for questions throughout the meeting, or find some other way to help. We particularly need staff journalists, and we also welcome PIOs and freelance writers, who have made up the majority of our mentors in past years.
Many former "mentees" are now regular mentors because they found the program so helpful. Please help NASW continue this valuable tradition.
A note to students who wish to apply for a mentor: We will send out an application form on NASW Announce within about two weeks, once we have an idea about how many mentors we will have.
Special thanks to NASW Education Committee Co-chairs Jeff Grabmeier and Rob Irion for organizing this program.
This brief form that will help us match you with a new science writer with similar interests to your own. Just copy it and paste it into a new e-mail, fill it out and e-mail it to mentor@nasw.org.
YES! I'LL BE A MENTOR!!
Name: _________________________________
Affiliation: __________________________
Phone: ________________________________
E-mail: _______________________________
My preferred days to mentor are: ___Fri ___Sat ___Sun
Current position and responsibilities:
Science field(s) of particular interest:
Will you be filing stories from the annual meeting or working media conferences?
Briefly, my background is (include educational training, a summary of positions held, etc.):
Have you been a mentor before? If so, when?
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